Was at a wedding yesterday with a band of loyal blog followers and their converts. One young woman, introduced to me, responded that you “never draft a Running Back at 1.02,” a precondition for her marrying a blog follower’s son. Definitely marriage material. All I could think of was the movie ‘Diner,’ where a prospective wife is given a football test. I forgot that Alan Ameche had the longest run from scrimmage in a rookie’s first game. And we’re not completely surprised that that record has since been broken. Who holds the new record? (Hint: it’s from the NFC East.) The young woman at the wedding? She caught the bouquet. Odds are rising.
Speaking of odds, did you know that the Giants Over/Under is 5.5 Under? Yes, you GET PAID +118 to bet the OVER. Ouch. Two of the blog regulars made a bet that the Gmen would win 2 of their first 5 games. The best candidates are at WAS, at DAL, and New Orleans. Shock the world. If the Giants are 2-3 in the first 5 games they are going OVER.
How does this team turn things around? Here is a list of 11 “known unknowns,” incremental questions on the margin that will go a long way to determining how this season breaks. These are questions we have before preseason even begins. Maybe they’ll get narrowed down a little bit before the season starts. Before we run through the 11 questions, let’s have a look back at last year’s 4 questions we had for how 2024 would unfold.
How do the known unknowns of Thibodeaux, Defensive Secondary, Daniel Jones, and JMS do? If we get 0 for 4, the Giants are easily Under 6.5 wins (Vegas) and probably finish with 4-5 wins.
Let’s go through these 4 determinants:
- Thibodeaux did not ascend in his 3rd season. He played well enough to get the 5th year option, but he is not delivering to the expectations of 1.05 overall. That’s 0 for 1.
- Tae Banks regressed. Yes, we were correct about Nubin and Phillips, which bodes well for 2025. Yet having Banks go backwards, confirmed by Schoen having to dip into Free Agency with Paulson Adebo, proves this was a zero. 0 for 2.
- Daniel Jones. Cut midseason. Epic dumpster fire. If I could give this a minus 1, I would. Frankly, let’s do that. -1.
- JMS. Clearly no ascendency there. 0.
That’s a -1 grade on a scale of 0 to 4. If you add Thomas going down midseason, the barometer foretold the outcome, per the 2024 preview post.
Out with the old, in with the new. 11 questions for the Giants as we head to 2025 preseason.
- Does Andrew Thomas stay healthy? After 2 consecutive years of losing our star Left Tackle, we desperately need him for 15+ starts.
- To quote Jim C, who got us kicked off with this list creation, “Does John Jingle Heimer Schmidt get better?”
- Can Evan Neal play very good Guard? I agree with BBB Schneier– we need this for a good run game and for depth.
- Can Hyatt make a difference? He had a good offseason. So far so good. The progression in training camp must continue.
- Will Skattebo be a short yardage/red zone contributor? Schneier cites how poor the Giants were in this area and how good Skattebo is creating space where there is none.
- Will TE Theo Johnson deliver on what the Giants front office/insiders believe is their true 2024 diamond in the rough?
- Will Shane Bowen lever Abdul Carter for the requisite impact this team will need? Early returns from minicamp were that Carter is just “different” in how freakishly he is able to get to the QB. That’s without pads. It’s up to Bowen to scheme this correctly to get the most out of not only Carter but all of the front 6.
- Will 3.65 rookie Darius Alexander, Roy Robertson-Harris et al help Dex in the run game? DL coach Patterson thinks Harris has so much untapped potential. We need to see SOMEONE step up here in 2025.
- Waiting for Go(Thibo)deaux. His body underwent a transformation. Did he add some pass rush moves to ascend?
- Can the running backs fumble less? Overall the Giants as a team were not bad, but Tracy had issues and Skattebo has had some fumbles in college.
- Will Tae Banks leverage his (easier) CB2 opportunity or will he fall behind Flott on the depth chart? It’s (year 3) Corey Webster time for this Round 1 pick.
Those are the questions. Training camp begins with rookies reporting this Tuesday, July 15. We’ll get some answers over the next two months before the season starts on September 7. There are 10 players and 1 coach we are watching to see if we can get a jump. Corey Webster was referenced. Do any of you think 2007 would have been possible without a jump in play from Webster that season? These players need to do better in answering these questions than Elise did in answering hers or it’s going Under.